Maybe A Life Count-Up, But Not a Countdown
Wired’s co-founder Kevin Kelly has a death counter running on his computer. It counts down the days he estimates he has left in his life. Yuck.
I decided to take the idea of number days seriously, and to revisit my earlier experience of counting down my remaining time on this lovely mortal plane. My hope was that a reckoning of my numbered days would help me account for how I spend each precious 24 hours, and to focus my attention and energy on those few tasks and projects I deem most important to me. Indeed, it might help me decide which ones are most important, which is the harder assignment.
What I wanted was a great big flashing sign that would show up on my computer and shout out to me how many days I had remaining. Then I would try to use my blog to record what how I spent the day to keep me honest. A wasted day would reveal its loss in the empty lower count the next day. I figured that mounting an automatic personal countdown sign should be pretty easy, and something that others might want to do as well.
While I can understand the “live life like it’s almost over and make the most of it” attitude behind this, it actually really irks me. I believe the body takes instructions from the mind (what happens to your mouth when you think of the taste of lemons?), and that what you focus on expands. Surely Kelly is not-so-subtly programming his mind and body to die in a planned way.
For those with an interest in radical life extension, perhaps this is an idea to simply flip around. Create a counter the goes up instead of down, adding life instead of taking it away. And maybe get rid of the huge “until Dead”, and replace it with “More Life to Live”.
Via Boing Boing.
